Ignorance
by sketchnurse
Summary: A two part story. He's been there for months, but she's as scared of talking to him as she was on day one. And believing that he avoids her because he is just House and nothing will change is easier. But what is easy isn't always what is right. post S5.
1. Chapter 1

_Cuddy._

It was a light rain, but it had motivated her enough to bring an umbrella.

This seemingly innocent search for an umbrella turned into a seemly innocent arrival in the hospital parking lot ten minutes later than she would have liked.

It had not been her fault that the umbrella had chosen such a delicate day to be elusive to her frantic searches, and it had definitely not been her fault that she had seen _him_ walk into the doors of one of her most prized possessions as if he had done so for the past few months.

However, it was her fault that she had chosen to take such a seemingly innocent moment and turn it into an excuse to finally let the uncried tears leading up to the day she knew he would come back fall freely onto her face.

The rain would have explained the dampness on her face and the smudged makeup, but unfortunately, she had chosen to bring an umbrella that day, and it was this small piece of black pointed proof that told the employees in the clinic that Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine, had indeed been crying, prior to her arrival in her office, fifteen minutes later than she would have liked to come.

Then again, House had arrived fifteen weeks later than she would have liked him to come.

It was not a gloomy day, not really, though there were rainclouds in the sky, there was sun, and a bright glow had set itself into the sky.

The rain was still falling from the relentless heavens, but it was such a rain that if you didn't look closely when you stared longingly out the window, you could delude yourself into thinking that it wasn't actually there, that it was yet another cloudy, mundane day, just like the cloudy, mundane days you had lived through the other days of this week.

However, the rain was there, and try as she may, Cuddy couldn't ignore the fact that there was something different about this day.

Of course, for the past few hours, she had worked her mind hard to push the fact that the unusual part of her day was in her hospital, probably sitting up in his office wondering what to do with himself.

She was supposed to meet with him so she could outline his responsibilities, but the sight of him walking through the door had convinced her that she could wait a couple more hours.

No, coordinating the next Board meeting would be far less painful that hearing him snark her like he hadn't been in a psychiatric hospital for more than three months.

He would do that, it was in his character.

Acting like nothing significant had happened was always his response to situations that had anything remotely resembling emotions.

No, he would be fine up in his office, she was sure that his video games and tennis ball would keep him occupied for hours.

She clicked the print button on her computer and watched as the minutes for the last Board meeting inched out of her printer, trying hard to keep her mind in her office and not in his.

**********

It was quite astounding that she had made it through the first day of his return; despite the fact that she had only seen him for a total of fifteen seconds to tell him he would be working alongside his team for the time being, before turning on her impractically high heels and leaving him to stand there, wondering what had changed.

Even more amazing was the fact that she had made it through the first week of his return without cracking.

Of course, everything had changed.

He had undoubtedly changed, although hopefully not too much.

Some part of Cuddy wanted him to come bursting into her office, demanding something ridiculous as usual.

Unfortunately, usual had not happened for a long time, and something told her that House wasn't ready to slip into the old routine quite yet.

Oh, he would pretend to be normal, pretend to be the same man who had grabbed her breast when she had tried to take their relationship further, if they ever clashed, but he wouldn't seek her out, not for weeks.

There was a trail of broken objects and hearts that followed him, she had wanted that, she hadn't wanted him to be a shadow of his former self, but this was too strange, too out of the ordinary that she had convinced herself long ago was just part of hospital life with Gregory House.

Yes, she had felt strangely empty in the months that he had been gone, but not having the never-ending stream of conflict when he was actually there was starting to get to her.

The period that he had been gone, the period that he had voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric hospital-she still couldn't get over that word-was as much a period for his self exploration as it was for hers.

In her office, while she talked mindlessly to donors and executives and the like, her mind wandered to days long gone, and never before had her mind dwelled so much on The Kiss.

There was no doubt that it was an event that deserved mental capitalization.

Just the raw ferocity of the kiss, the way he just bent down and captured her lips, the way she accepted the kiss so readily, not bothering to think about what would happen next, hoping that at last, something would happen next, still sent shivers up her spine.

And of course, there was the two-syllable, monotone response to that fiery kiss, 'goodnight'.

How could she have had a goodnight, when she had lost her baby, her Joy, to a girl that was barely a woman, how could she have slept when thoughts of his lips and his tongue and his breath were still fresh in her reeling mind, when there was a part of her that wished that they could have both taken their desires further?

And what of the distance he had put between them?

Even now, she wasn't sure if he had been trying to protect her from the inevitable harm he would cause her, or if he was just scared of commitment, scared of everything that she could do to him, scared of something happening and losing her like he had lost Stacy, or a little bit of both.

He wasn't a bad person; he was just a jerk, a bastard, an ass, a deliciously sexy and irresistible ass.

Well, he must have been at least a little bit resistible, because Cuddy had been able to block him out of her mind, push him so far off the plate she was balancing that was full with the hospital, and Rachael, and the endless torrent of things to do, that she hadn't noticed that he was not okay, that he wasn't just being a jerk, that he was hallucinating, that he was delusional, that everything he had said his last day at work was not for some convoluted reaction from her, that it was to let her know he had wanted more of her, after a night of passion that had never happened.

And after over three months reviewing the information that Wilson had reluctantly given her, she had come to a conclusion, perhaps a conclusion she had come to before, but was reluctant to admit.

House wanted her. And she wasn't sure if it was a bad thing or a good thing.

Unfortunately, even through months of planning, she hadn't come up with an action plan for dealing with him when he came back.

The panic that had settled itself in her chest when she had first seen him, limping through the light rain, had abated just a bit, but every time she saw him, whether it was in the clinic, yelling at some numbskulled patient for trying to treat themselves or taunting Wilson about some nurse in Radiology, or even one time at the supermarket, reluctantly examining packets of steak while Cuddy hid behind a barbeque sauce display, willing him not to see her, she felt a pang in her chest, a feeling she hadn't felt since she had first seen him back in Michigan.

No, she refused to be smitten, she refused to be _in love, _but it was hard to ignore the thoughts that had began popping into her head since he had gotten back.

And it was this bottling up of feelings, this refusal of acknowledgement of what she really wanted from him, that forced her to stay away from the man who had plagued her thoughts.

And, correct her if she was mistaken, but it was this same refusal of emotions that kept him away from her, as if their same states of mind kept them at arms length from each other, like two negatively charged magnets.

************

A knock at her door at two in the morning was most unexpected.

At a happier time, she would have been unsurprised and lifted herself off the couch to meet the man with the cane who would be standing out of her door.

Of course, it wasn't a happier time; it was three weeks after he had gotten back, the only time less happy than this was the period before it.

She got herself out of bed; in a happier time she would have been asleep, but not now, not when thousands of radical thoughts were speeding through her head unchecked. Of course, opening the door had forced one though to the forefront: what exactly did she feel for this man?

"House." she said, it was more of a statement than a question.

"Cuddy."

"Why are you standing on my doorstep?" Yes, why was he there, without his cane, looking more vulnerable than ever?

"I-" His mouth shut after the first choked syllable, and then he limped off, carefully supporting his crippled leg as he made his way back to his motorcycle, leaving Cuddy to wonder just what the hell had happened, leaving her to question whether the whole scene was just a product of her sleep deprived mind.

No, Cuddy really hoped she hadn't gone crazy, but as for how to approach the visit at work the next day, she was at a loss.

Nothing would ever be easy for her; nothing would ever be simple when it came to him.

************

It was a week later when she had heard the same sound, almost like the fates were taunting her with little bits of the life she had had before everything had crashed, before Kutner had killed himself and House had lost grip, little bits of the things she had hated and secretly loved about the man.

A knock on the door, a sound in the middle of the night, a disturbance at a time when healthy people were sleeping, surely someone was torturing her for dealing with his return so badly.

Her distance had taken a toll on both of them, the strain between them when they were alone together, and the unbearable awkwardness when it settled on them that they were talking, to each other, without any witnesses.

It couldn't be called anyone's fault, really; or maybe it was both of them, the woman, scared of the things that he did to her, reluctant to do again what had ended in failure, the man, feeling like he was undeserving, assuming that she wouldn't want him, hadn't wanted him for a very long time, since he had made it clear that he wasn't ready to put his feelings on the table, reluctant to do what was against his nature.

Wasn't the definition of insanity doing something more than once and expecting different results?

Surely if even an _ounce_ of Gregory House had wanted her, he would have made the move, his keen observation skills would have noticed that she was not going to do anything except put on a mask of indifference whenever he was in the room.

The indifference, the forced conversations, the fakeness of it all, wasn't helping him. And maybe that was why he had rode up to her house, on his motorbike, in the middle of the night last week, to try to do something, to clarify, to get something out of his jumbled mind.

He was free of problems, no hallucinations, no delusions, a clean bill of health, no longer taking Vicodin, he was in pain, but that was alright, he could cope with that, he had alternative medication.

He didn't know what to do with the emotions, though, his psychiatrist had taught him techniques to deal with his thoughts, when he couldn't say them out loud, and maybe that was why he hadn't exploded under the unbearable tension that he and Cuddy had put themselves under.

Two normal people surely would have done something by now, but it was like one of their old power plays, one of their old games, the first person to crack under the pressure and approach the other with intentions of working out their problems, they would lose, they were weaker.

No, Cuddy could pretend that she was a person who dealt well with her feelings, but the truth was, she was scared of this, she was angry that after all these years House still had this ridiculously strong effect on her.

He was miserable, she knew that; she couldn't imagine what the experience he had gone through had been like, getting the one thing that he could count on ripped away from him, all because he had depended too much on the one thing in life he thought he _could_ depend on.

Vicodin.

But the Vicodin was only necessary because of the error of several people; the horrible infarction in his thigh had left him without more than just a muscle.

How many people realized just how much of his life had been torn from him? How many people have gone through that?

No, these hardships did not give him an excuse to be an ass, but there was so much he had to deal with; was his short temper because he didn't have time to deal with the inadequacies of other people, because he was so acutely aware of his own?

Even now, years after the surgery, she still felt guilt, a horrible sensation, washing over her, blanketing all other feelings.

Was it because of her that everything had gone wrong in his life?

The stay at Mayfield, could she have prevented that if she had just looked into his asshood a little bit more?

No, there were many people blame, if blame needed to be placed.

Wilson, for not telling her about the hallucinations, her, for trying to pretend he was just being himself, his team, for not noticing anything strange.

Kutner, for killing himself, that event must have shook House up, it was Kutner, not Foreman, who was most like House, Kutner, the little spark of laughter in the hospital, could he have really been that empty?

And, House, Cuddy knew he wouldn't kill himself, but he had come pretty close, he wasn't actively destroying himself, but he didn't care when he did.

Maybe, maybe this stay at Mayfield had done something for him, maybe he had learned something.

Well, nothing that Cuddy knew about, because she avoided him, and he avoided her.

Curiosity still burned at her, but it was too risky, out of her comfort zone, she didn't know this man anymore.

And it was this rift that had opened between them, this impossible chasm, that kept her up at night.

In the wee hours, her thoughts ran unchecked, and she wondered what could have been, what would have been, maybe even what should have been if one of them was just willing to build a goddamn bridge.

Well, tonight he had at least thrown a rope over to the other side, and hopefully he hadn't _blindly_ tried to get over the rift to see what was on the other end.

Hopefully he had some sort of plan, and a better speech prepared tonight than 'I-'.

Hopefully she would be able to say something, and hopefully the interaction on her doorstep, at 1:29 am, would get farther than the hurried conversations of the past month.

With a defeated sigh, she lifted herself off her bed and walked to her front door. A man, fifty years old and clad in a leather jacket, his face as unreadable as always, stood on her doorstep, holding his cane.

"House. What are you doing? And please don't walk off without saying anything again."

"I said something."

"Yeah. Cuddy. I. Leaves. What do you want?" She wanted an answer, some sort of dialogue to get over the awkwardness that seemed to follow them like a plague of insects since he had gotten back.

"Thought I would start up an old tradition."

No, not an answer.

Not an answer in any way.

Unfortunately, she didn't have anything more to say to him, no quick-witted reply rose to her lips, nothing.

The months of no practice with her retorting skills must have robbed her of the ability to snark.

Besides, House looked in no condition for a verbal battle; Mayfield must have taken away that skill from him.

She wondered, not for the first time, exactly what he had been through.

"I was trying to sleep." she said finally, fully aware that that statement had nothing to do with anything she was thinking.

"Funny, I was trying to sleep too, but look where I ended up."

"There is nothing funny about disturbing your boss in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason." _No, no, no_, her mind screamed, _that's not what you want to say to him!_

"Hmm. Well, in that case, I guess I'll leave _the boss_ alone. Goodnight."

A soft voice, strangely reminiscent of that night that kept popping up in Cuddy's mind.

_Goodnight._

He limped off, again, though this time he left her with many more words and many more questions.

But before she could snap herself out of her reverie and her thoughts, he was gone, the only evidence of him having been there a distant rumble in the background, and a piece of paper.

She vaguely remembered seeing him with that rumpled piece of paper in the hospital earlier.

It must have fallen out of his pocket.

She reached down and picked it up off her steps, unfolding it, and even in her muddled, sleep-deprived state, she recognized that significance of its contents enough to gasp and walk inside, all thoughts of sleep erased, all thoughts of him drawn to the forefront of her mind.

Words were printed on this wrinkled piece of white paper, its previously smooth exterior broken by lines, stains, brown and darker brown and a crimson, which she could only guess was his own blood, and a rip, a piece missing.

Typed in a thick black script were the words _I am in love with Lisa Cuddy._

He was in love with Lisa Cuddy.

She was Lisa Cuddy.

He was in love with her.

He was _in love _with her.

God, how many normal people could say those words to themselves without any problems?

_I am in love with_…well, truth be told, no one had even been in love with her before, and if she had ever doubt in her mind that she was in love with Gregory House before this moment, it was erased.

Love.

That stupid, four letter word that could cause wars.

No, Gregory House probably wasn't ready for this particular arrangement of the letters l, o, v, and e, but here it was, typed out for him to carry in his pocket.

********

She kept his piece of paper in her pocket for weeks.

Their interactions in the hospital were normal.

Clipped.

Fake.

Forced.

Strained.

Ridiculous.

Undesired by either party.

It was slowly driving Cuddy crazy.

How could he just act like he had for the past few months, knowing that he was in love with her?

How could she continue to take his crap without breaking and admitting that she knew his 'secret'?

How could they function without giving in and killing (and/or kissing) each other?

And how could House have sedated a psychotic clinic patient, snuck her off to his office, admitted her under a fake name, stole the spot of a very rich and very _angry _donor, and gotten her a free MRI?

Oh, and diagnosed a rare brain tumor on a lucky guess, preventing her from dying.

She supposed saving her life was a bit of a get out of an ass-kicking free card.

But that was yet to be decided.

Finding him was a bit of a task.

Besides the obvious difficulty of the task of locating a House who knew he was going to get massacred after his latest stunt, Cuddy was painfully aware of her own reluctance to put her heart into the task.

She didn't want to find him.

She didn't want to face him, because she would undoubtedly lose control and yell at him.

And most likely, she would shout things that didn't need to be shouted.

This was the last straw.

She couldn't avoid him forever.

And despite the conflicting feelings that were battling in her already overloaded mind, for the good of the hospital, House needed to be reminded just where the line was.

"House!" she shouted as she stalked into Exam Room 2 in the clinic, finding a man who looked entirely too interested in an episode of General Hospital to be entirely healthy.

"Yes, oh gracious mistress? Do thou bring me offerings of gold and hand jobs?" House looked at her innocently, but she knew there was nothing that remotely resembled innocence in those steely blue eyes.

Cuddy let out an exasperated groan.

"I expected you to be hiding in here, or in the morgue, or on the roof, or on Mars, because I'm sure you've heard news that I've heard news of your latest stunt."

"And what latest stunt would this be? The one where I forgot to replace the toilet paper in the men's room? Or the official 750th time I've stolen Wilson's lunch?" He knew she was angry, he knew she was livid, he saw the look in her eyes and the flushed tone of her skin, he recognized the warning signs after years of practice.

So why wasn't he getting ready to defend himself?

"No, I'm referring the Yvette Walsh incident." House looked at her questioningly, but she could see through his act. "You know, the one where you _drugged_ a patient, convinced your _employees_ to sneak her up into her room, _hacked_ into the system, admitted her under a _fake name_, and proceeded to book her into the spot of a woman who had been scheduled for an MRI for weeks."

"Hmm. You seem to have left out the part about if I hadn't done that, you would have had a dying woman bleeding out of her ears lying on the streets of Princeton. I thought _saving her life_ was a bit more important than scanning Mrs. _Oh god, I'm getting old, it _must_ be a medical problem_." Cuddy groaned again; this was why it was so difficult to deal with him, because no matter what, whatever stupid stunt he pulled, he usually managed to save a life along with it.

"Look, House, I don't _care_ if screwing around the hospital mainframe saves a thousand lives, you still CANNOT do that! You are a doctor like any other, and you are NOT allowed to ignore protocol."

"Oh, wouldn't _you_ like it if I saved a thousand lives at once. I am not like other doctors, _you_ give me leniency. I _need _leniency; I need to ignore all the things that other doctors can't, because my job, saving lives, taking risks, noticing what other doctors can't, _doing _what other doctors can't, is why you hired me. And it's also why you're not going to fire me. I am useful; I am an asset to your hospital. So don't think that what ever stupid little rant you have prepared for me is going to scare me into toning it down, because it won't. And you don't want me to tone it down."

"So, you think that just because you have some sort of god-like talent, that because you can _do what other doctors can't_, that you can just parade around and ignore the rights and needs of everyone, _including_ your patient's, just to get the answer? We both know it's not about saving lives with you, that's just the ultimate excuse that you use to get whatever you need done, done. You couldn't care less whether they live or die, only that you know _why_."

"Well, if I'm so damn obsessed with _why, _why haven't I asked you why you've been acting so awkward around me since I got back?"

"I haven't been acting-"

"Yes, you have. What, am I some fragile piece of china? You're afraid to break me until I knock into something that might be worth more? I'm not delicate, I'm functional, and you don't need to act like anything for me."

"I somehow don't think you can blame me for not wanting to hang around you, destruction seems to follow at every turn." Cuddy retorted, angry that the accusations about her had started so soon.

"Yeah? Like me destroying my own mind?"

She looked at him guiltily; it was obvious that she was still feeling responsible for his breakdown.

"Cuddy, you don't need to act all cautious around me, you can talk to me, yell at me, I don't care, anything but this false calmness. I know you have something on your mind."

"And what would you care if I did? Don't pretend to be empathetic; we both know it's something you're not. You just want to figure out the _anomaly, _why I haven't been after you for all the little things you've been doing all week. I didn't care that you hadn't been doing your clinic hours, I didn't care that your patient's chart was woefully incomplete, I didn't even care that you kept phoning me every two hours to tell me how your patient was. But this stunt with the clinic woman isn't something I can just _not care_ about because you're _special_."

"So, I've been doing all this bullshit all week, and yet, you never came looking for me. You feel awkward around me, you think that I'm all broken and I'm just licking my wounds in private. I'm not. I'm fine. They fixed everything when I was in Mayfield."

"I came looking for you now, didn't I?"

"That's because someone would have noticed if you had ignored this one."

"So that's why you did it, because I couldn't ignore it? Have you been so desperate for my attention that you decided it would be a good time to get your old reputation back in action?"

"No, I did it to save her life."

"You could have gone to me for an emergency MRI."

"That would have taken too long."

"No, it wouldn't have. So I'm thinking that you just did the reckless thing because you needed me to yell at you. That makes me think that _you_ have something to say to _me_."

"No, not really. Just needed to get her brain scanned so I could locate the tumor that was pressing on her brain."

"Well, that's all well and good, but I still think that you have something else on your mind."

"So now we've switched subjects? Very smooth Cuddy, very smooth."

"We're not switching subjects; I'm trying to figure out why you've gone beyond your normal ass…"

And that was when she realized what was going on.

The mischievous grin on House's face gave it all away.

"Beyond asshood, you say? Hmm, that sounds familiar. Too familiar."

"So, all this is because you want to get my attention so that you can…"

"I dunno, what word do you want to use? I think we better make sure we're both thinking of the same thing."

"You're trying to woo me?"

He may have been smiling, but she was all business, her voice harsh and accusing, her mind still trying to convince her that she needed to stay away from him, that this new gesture couldn't mean anything more but a new level to the game.

"I don't know. Is it working?"

House was so naïve sometimes; when it came to life, cruelty and pain, he was wise even beyond his fifty years, but when it came to relationships, he might as well have been thirteen and trying to deal with all the new feelings he experienced when he saw a well-developed girl walk by him.

Judging by the grin on his face, he didn't know that his first real effort at winning Cuddy was about to be dashed.

"I believe this is yours." Cuddy said as she shoved the piece of paper with his confession on it into his chest, more forcefully than was necessary, putting all her frustration and confusion over finding that House was human into that single movement, before striding out of the room.

_I think we should move in together._


	2. Chapter 2

_House. _

House looked at the paper, shocked, the grin he had been wearing moments earlier gone, then looked at the door, a hard, longing look, as if he thought if he looked at the place where Lisa Cuddy had been a few seconds earlier enough, she would come back and let him do what had taken him weeks to decide to do.

But he was House.

And nothing that he could say would make that untrue.

He wanted her; he knew that, he wanted to make a move.

Thinking it would have been easy was naïve.

He wanted to stop this, feeling like shit all the time; sometimes, when he was alone in his apartment, after had had a particularly long day, he found himself wishing that he wasn't such a miserable bastard, that he could just do what he needed to, that he wasn't so awkward when it came to irrational things like feelings.

He needed something more than the nothing that was in his life.

He had his medicine, he had his puzzles, but there wasn't really anything else for him to go on.

His Vicodin was gone; he didn't even have alcohol anymore.

There was something missing in his life, he knew what it was, but it wasn't as simple as just going out at getting it.

The incident with the clinic patient, he knew that he could have stepped over all the red tape, but he hadn't felt like it.

Making her angry would make her notice; it was the only way he knew how to get her attention.

Using her guilt against her wasn't something he could do anymore.

She had been through enough guilt in the past six months to last her seven lifetimes.

He had tried to get her attention like this before, when he had wanted her, really wanted her, all of her, the first time, and that hadn't worked, but he had assumed that was because his intentions had been based on a delusion.

He was one of the most brilliant people in the world, but emotions were uncharted waters for him.

Pain, he knew pain, he knew sadness, he knew regret, he knew bitterness, but love, love was something he had only ever shared with one person before.

Stacy was something that he would never experience again, she had been something good for him, possibly the one good thing that he had had besides his medicine.

But something in the universe had been cruel enough to make her a temporary addition to a life that was too empty.

He supposed that it was his fault, that he had pushed her away the first time, but he still stubbornly thought that if someone had just figured out what was wrong with his leg before, he wouldn't be here.

Sometimes, when he was feeling hazy and alone and worthless, he wondered what his life would be if he still had full use of his leg.

He knew it wasn't healthy to dwell on the past, but he did, everyone did, he was human, he was bound to have some flaws, he could make mistakes, his shrink had told him that.

The past few decades, he had seen so many changes; he had gone through so much, it all made him feel incredibly old.

He went to Wilson's office; it was the only thing that he knew how to do.

Somehow, his friend would know that something was going on in his mind when he would unceremoniously sit himself down on the couch, perhaps in the middle of a meeting with a patient.

And then, he could deflect, Wilson could voice his suspicions, and House could come to some sort of conclusion.

If it was the one that Wilson came to, he wouldn't need to tell him.

House limped over to the oncologist's office, hoping that Wilson was in the mood to talk.

Well, Wilson had really been the only person that House had been able to have a real conversation with since getting back from Mayfield, so if he wasn't available to talk to, he didn't know who.

His team was still tiptoeing around him, though last week he had gotten back full control of the department, they still relied on Foreman just as much as him.

Thirteen and Foreman were tight-knit, Taub seemed to be an outsider most of the time.

And it was in this outsider that House felt most comfortable with, because when the other half of the team is doing the nasty together outside of hospital hours, the dynamic tends to get messed up.

He knew this from experience with Cameron and Chase, but with Kutner there, well, it hadn't seemed so awkward.

After he had died, Foreman and Thirteen hadn't been so focused on their relationship.

And Taub had been focused on pretending not to grieve.

The way the team worked now, it was so much different, but that was probably because House had been somewhere else, had experienced something so different, for three months.

Being the patient, it was always different from being the doctor, because you can't be objective about yourself.

He had proved that with the infarction.

At Mayfield, he had refused for the longest time that he needed to change.

It wasn't as if no one had expected that, but everything would have gone so much faster if he had just been willing to cooperate.

And yet, here he was, going to Wilson's office, to 'talk'.

He hoped that Wilson would have something to offer to him, because getting his mind off the way that Cuddy's eyes had regarded him so coldly when it was clear that he was enjoying himself was proving to be difficult.

"House! What a wonderful unexpected surprise!" Wilson said as House came into his office, disregarding the patient who was just about to get up.

"Hey Wilson." he replied, taking the recently vacated seat on Wilson's couch.

"Hey? That's all you have to say? No crude comments about the affair you suspect I'm having with my patient? No proud proclamations about escaping the lion's grasp after your latest feat on the other side of hospital protocol?"

"Nope."

"You're just going to sit there. Well, okay. Nice weather we're having, really brings out the whole tormented soul elements in your eyes."

"I talked to Cuddy in the clinic."

"And judging by your general unsingedness, I'm guessing that the she-devil didn't smite you for your disobedience."

"Not for my disobedience, no."

"Hmm, which means it's something else. What did you do that was worse than sedating someone and admitting them under a fake name, smuggling her up to your room, and stealing a spot for the MRI?"

"What makes you think I would tell you?"

"Well, generally you tell me about everything that you get up to, which leads me to believe that it's something that you don't want to tell me, which must mean that it's embarrassing, and since you are rarely embarrassed, it must be something that you're really ashamed of. And the only things that you're ashamed of have to do with your feelings. So either you-"

"Cuddy knows I'm trying to pursue her." House said lowly, cutting Wilson off before he could continue on his rant.

"Did you tell her?" Wilson asked, concerned.

House hated when Wilson was concerned.

He hadn't really wanted to get right into it, but he supposed it was best, knowing Wilson, he would lecture him about all sorts of garbage; it was obvious he was in that mood today.

House had told Wilson all about his plan to get Cuddy's attention, and of course, Wilson had pointed out that creating a lot of messes for her to clean up was childish and probably wouldn't work. But he had encouraged him to try anyway, probably because his messiah complex was getting antsy watching House continue to avoid Cuddy when he knew that that was really the last thing he wanted to do.

"I…" House didn't really know where to start. It wasn't exactly his forte, describing what happened and his feelings about the event.

Even though he had learned a lot of things in Mayfield, emotional connections were still, and probably always would be, a mystery to him.

"She found me in the clinic and yelled at me about the woman I saved. I questioned her about avoiding me, and we started yelling at each other, and then… she figured out what I was up to."

"And?" Wilson asked.

Somehow he always knew when there was something else House wanted to say.

"You remember that night?"

"Oh yes, that night. Which 'that night'?"

"The one when you waited to give me a ride for over an hour?"

He was sure that Wilson remembered, it wasn't often that he asked for a ride home, and even less often when he had to wait for House for long periods of time when there was a promise of pizza and monster trucks.

"Yeah…" Wilson looked suspicious; he had a right to be.

House hadn't actually shared too much of what he had been getting up to with the oncologist, but the truth was, he hadn't really been up to much.

"I was in my office. And I had… typed something up."

"Please don't tell me it was paperwork. I'm not quite sure that I'm ready for hell to freeze over yet."

House laughed dryly at that. If Wilson thought paperwork would make hell freeze over…

"It's a technique that Dr. Nolan recommended."

"A coping technique?"

"No, a baking technique. You type something that's on your mind, and it's out in the open, you've acknowledged it, without actually having anyone know about it. At least that was the plan…"

"What did you do House?"

"It said I am I love with Lisa Cuddy! And I dropped it when I went to her house in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, and she found it! And when I admitted that I was trying to pursue her, she shoved it at me and stormed off."

Wilson didn't say anything, but looked at House.

"And you think that you screwed it up with her." he said finally.

"Yeah, I think it's pretty screwed up now! She just said 'I believe this is yours' and stormed out of there! For all the bullshit she spews about giving people chances and all that crap, she sure got out of there pretty-"

"She's scared."

"Of what? What am I going to do to her?"

"You? I'm sure you wouldn't intentionally try to hurt her, but she's been hurt by you in the past, and so she's scared. She's just gotten used to the idea that you aren't any good for her and she's just started to move on, and now this big bomb has been dropped on her. Of course she would try to run."

"She doesn't need to." House muttered, getting up.

"Where are you going? We still need to talk about this! This is huge House, you admitting that being rejected by her has affected you. Maybe we can-"

"I'm going home." House interrupted.

He didn't need Wilson to try to talk to Cuddy, if she wanted to fix things on her own, she would come find him.

"Don't you have a case?" Wilson asked exasperatedly.

"Foreman and the ducklings can handle it. They did for three months." House replied bitterly.

It was obvious that he wasn't in a good place at the moment, and his failure with Cuddy seemed to have translated into low self-esteem.

"Well… I got you some de-alcoholized beer." Wilson said, pointing to a case behind his desk.

"Thanks." House muttered, leaning over and grabbing it.

At least the act of drinking beer would help him, even if there wasn't any alcohol.

"Bye Wilson." he said as he walked out the door.

"Bye House." Wilson said after House had gone, wishing that things would just work out for his friend for once.

*********

What woman would want him, anyway, he asked himself as he swigged another mouthful of the non-alcoholic beer that Wilson had got him, the taste of it only a shadow of the bite of hard alcohol that he knew would get him through the disappointment of Cuddy's rejection.

It was too soon after his stay at Mayfield to feel this awful; he had expected, again naïvely, that the only new pain he would experience was the physical kind.

She had found that stupid piece of paper.

The way Cuddy affected him, it scared him, he hated it, he still hated feeling something that couldn't be defined by logic or science.

He didn't know why he had typed out that sentence, late at night, when everyone had left the hospital and he was feeling too empty to go back to his apartment just yet, though he knew Wilson was going to be there with pizza and payperview.

He was out of Mayfield; medically, he was just fine, but while his life was stable at the moment, he had never felt like this, like there was nothing that would help him move his life out of the grey slump that it was in.

He hated himself still, he paraded around the hospital like he always had, but that was for the benefit of everyone else, to show that he was still okay, the he hadn't become a shadow of his former self, but that _was_ what he had become.

It wasn't to comfort other people, this charade that he had put on, but to make sure that no one came around to worry about him.

It was easier to let everyone assume that Mayfield had completely fixed him.

Following her every move, he knew it was pathetic, but he allowed himself to admire her from afar, it was all he could do.

He was sad, he was still at the bottom, he was a lovesick boy who couldn't tell the object of his affection how he felt.

She didn't want him, that much was clear.

The look of anger on her face, even when his was joyous at finally trying to pursue her, was still burned into his mind, the bottle of liquid in his hand wasn't going to erase that.

It really was foolish of him, doing something so reckless, but in a way, he needed the risk, he hadn't done anything truly stupid in a long time.

It had thrilled him, sticking the syringe into that woman's arm, knowing that it was something he shouldn't have done, the adrenaline coursing through his system as he helped his team smuggle her into his office, it made him feel more alive than he had in a long time.

It was a high.

He was tired of the grey; he was tired of sitting alone in his apartment, unable to drink away the pain in his thigh.

Every time he thought about the failure of his childish pursuits of Cuddy, he felt more and more like he didn't want to be alive anymore.

But as strong as the physical and emotional pain was, there was an even stronger part of him that wanted to fight through it, that wanted to believe that the worst was about to be over, that couldn't let him just kill himself to get it over with.

He couldn't take the coward's way out, he had seen too many lives destroyed by suicide, and as selfish as he was, inflicting the burden of the guilt following his death wasn't something he would let himself do.

His piano, that really was his only vice now, that and his guitar.

Music, it was the only window into his soul, it let him release everything into his hands, it let him express himself without having to talk to anyone, to become the human person that he despised so much.

Music didn't need to be grounded in logic; there was no way it could be.

Logic, there was no logic to explain the way his relationship with Cuddy had progressed.

It hadn't progressed since he had gotten back, it had regressed.

Neither of them wanted to get close to the other, it was too risky, they would get hurt.

He wished he knew what she wanted.

He wished he didn't care what she wanted.

He wished that he could continue on like this, but he knew he couldn't.

Drugs were calling to him; they were always calling to him, every minute of everyday.

Just a couple pills, a shot of heroin, a puff of marijuana, even a swig of whisky, they could all make it better.

He didn't deserve to live like this, no one did.

But no one seemed to care enough about him to worry about him taking drugs.

He took another swig of beer, the taste of it was getting old, it was stale, almost, but there was nothing else in his apartment that would distract him.

When he had let Stacy go the second time, he felt empty like this, but he had had alcohol to help him, he had had women to distract him.

But something in him now wouldn't let him hire girls half his age to fuck him.

Every time he thought about sex, he thought about Cuddy, about the delusion, about the silky smooth skin that he had thought he had felt against his body, on his bed, after he had detoxed.

The memory was still crystal clear.

Now when he thought about it, tears threatened to surface in his eyes.

He could never have that now.

The only way he could feel her harsh, hungry kisses, feel her smooth neck against his mouth as he pressed her up against the wall, feel her body move under his as they joined together on his mattress, see her smile at him as he held her after the made love, was to relive the memories his mind had created.

And he hated that.

He hated himself for being so weak.

So attached to a woman.

His happiness so dependant on a person who was ignoring him.

And as he played a few more bars on his piano, he found himself wondering where she was at the moment.

She was probably still at the hospital, dealing with the fallout of his exploits.

He wondered why he had made her so angry just by showing her that he had feelings for her.

Maybe she had just wanted to keep things simple between them, maybe she had wanted to believe that he hadn't changed, that he was still incapable of doing anything about the desire he had for her.

She had never visited when he was in Mayfield, he hadn't wanted her there.

Wilson was fine; Wilson was allowed to see him like that.

When he had gotten back, he had expected her to be all over him worrying, but there was something between them now.

Something that apparently couldn't be fixed by juvenile attempts at her attention.

Or anything else his mind could come up with.

He wasn't able to get her to understand what he was going through, because getting her to come closer, getting her involved, really involved, in his life, required something other than manipulation.

He had never wanted to alienate her, but here he was, alone, feeling angry at himself.

At least, he thought he was alone.

But he was fairly sure that he heard a sneeze when he went up to get a box of crackers.

And he was fairly sure that the shuffling that he heard when he sat down was made by a pair of feet covered in stilettos, not his own bare set.

And he was fairly sure that Wilson wasn't the one standing outside of his door, debating whether or not to ring the bell.

He got up, grabbing his cane, and walked over to the door.

He looked through his door and saw a woman outside of it, clasping her hands together and staring up at the ceiling, as if trying to decide between two difficult decisions.

He threw the door open, not caring that it crashed into his wall with a frightfully loud sound, only that Cuddy looked over at him in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" he asked angrily, not in the mood for any pity from her.

"Hmm, couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you left in the middle of the day without solving your case could it? Couldn't possibly that I was worried you were going to drink yourself into a coma, could it?"

"Oh, stop trying to pin whatever guilt you're feeling on me, it's not going to work."

"Is that a beer?" Her voice was harsh, accusing.

He hated it.

"It's non alcoholic. Though after what you put me through, I sure wish it was alcoholic."

"After what I put you through? House, I acted professionally on a personal matter between myself and you, an employee, and you overreacted! You went home without doing your job! And to do what, drink fake beer and play your piano all night? Forgive me if I thought that you would get self-destructive. It _is_ only the one way you deal with emotional problems!"

"So, you're admitting that your actions had an effect on my emotions? You've given up the House-is-a-robot routine in favour of House-has-actual-human-feelings-that-he's-prone-to-expressing-once-in-a-while, if-he-gets-hurt-enough? You rejected me, I'm over it, you can leave."

"Rejected you-"

"Yeah, that's what us misanthropes call a woman storming out of a room after you admit that you were pursuing her. Sorry if you cold-hearted hospital administrators call it something different."

"I'm not leaving, House. We need to talk about this."

"Nothing left to talk about. You found a piece of paper that suggests that I'm in love with you, you freaked out when you realized that I was trying to make a move on you, end of story. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way, but there's not much I can do about that."

"And who says I don't feel the same way?"

"I don't know, maybe your body language? Maybe the way you've been avoiding meaningful conversations with me like you avoid sensible shoes? Maybe how you refused, even for a second, to consider that I wanted you and was prepared to do something about it? But no, it's a one way street when it comes to me, I'm _miserable_, and I only want to make other people miserable. You don't deserve me, and I don't deserve you."

"Don't-"

She grabbed his arm as he turned to walk through his door.

"Face it, you're not ready to accept anything other than what you're used to from me. Even though you desperately want to just wake up and have me be a decent person, have me have been a decent person all along, and yet somehow every bit the sarcastic jerk that you fell in love with in university, life doesn't work that way. So either take what you can get from me or get out of my life."

"I can't 'get out of your life', I'm your boss! So _you_ can either suck it up or-"

"Or what? What other options do I have? You pursue me, I push you away, you get unhappy, when I do the same, I'm not allowed to get upset?"

"House, you don't _get_ upset! You go brood away from everyone else, you rationalize your emotions by twisting everything until it makes sense to you, you throw yourself into your cases until you nearly faint from lack of sleep, you do NOT get upset about anything!"

"Yeah, and what evidence are you basing that assumption? By all the times I haven't seemed like I cared? I don't, usually, but every little once in a blue moon I feel something, like oh, I don't know, the time that you cut out part of my leg? When Stacy left? Every time my dad-"

He looked at her, and he was sure she saw it in his eyes.

Regret.

"I, I don't-"

"Relax; you don't need to say anything. Your empty words of comfort wouldn't mean anything to me anyway, so don't waste your breath. You should get back home to the little parasite, anyway."

"Rachael is NOT a parasite! And I got a sitter for her! Stop insulting me to get me to go away! Forgive me for trying to CARE!"

"You seem pretty eager to care now that you've actually done something that might hurt me! Maybe you should have started caring about me when I had gotten back, not now, after you screwed up!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Fall into your arms and let you carry me off into the sunset?"

"Yeah, that would have been nice! Better than leaving me feeling like shit!"

"Again, with the feeling something! You're the one who always degrades people for showing human emotion!"

"That's because emotion clouds judgment and screws everything up!"

"Oh, like your judgment was clouded and caused you to go home early, leaving your team hanging?"

"Yeah, maybe! Look, either you want me or you don't. You can't start caring now and back off later, there isn't any grey area in between. I don't want the indecisiveness anymore!"

"Oh, you're one to talk! You're the king of indecisiveness! Every _little_ personal _question_ that someone _asks_ you _must_ be _deflected_! Oh, how are you House? Well, I would like to say that I'm in agony and would like some comfort, but what I'm actually going to say is insensitive and helpful to no one, please call back when you have something that is based on facts for me to help you with. You don't think that I hate this? You don't think that I stay up at night, thinking about the myriad of ways that we screwed each other up? Because I do, House, but you're just as much at fault as I am! But this time, I didn't want to emotionally invest myself because-"

"Yeah, I get it, you're afraid of getting hurt! What about the last time you came after me, when we shared my office? Surely that was a greater risk that just accepting that I'm trying to pursue you, but no, burned once and can't get close to the stove again, even though you're really tired of living off the microwave."

"Again, I'm sorry for not trusting you because you've been a real ass about my feelings for you in the past! Maybe we should just rewind and go back to when we kissed; maybe we can fix things from there!"

"Time travel would fix everything, wouldn't it! Just because I'm still the same guy that you've always known, the one who can't make up his mind when it comes to something that isn't based in logic, doesn't mean that it's all my fault! You've been distant, and now you won't let me try to show you that I want you! No, you don't need to say anything, you can just go home to Rachael, she isn't old enough to be a lost cause. Better give her a few years, while you watch me spiral off into a vortex of self-destruction."  
"Are you saying that it'll be my fault when you finally kill yourself? I am NOT the source of your feelings House, your life does NOT depend on my actions towards you!"

"Well, this part of my life does. Why couldn't you just have accepted that I wanted to be with you?"

"Because with you, House, there is always something more, some convoluted motive behind every seemingly kind action. I just wanted to skip to the part where I moved on after you hurt me."

"Without the me hurting you part. That makes sense, shoot the bird before you can see it just because it might be flying in the section of sky that you shot the last bird in. But different time, different bird, different route."

"Oh would you stop with the stupid metaphors?"  
"Only when you stop yelling at me for reacting to something _you_ did."  
"Well, I wouldn't have to be here if you had just gone on with your day."

"Usually I just go on with my day when something doesn't affect me, which this did."

"So, me rejecting you is one of the great traumatic experiences of your life?"

"I didn't say that I only feel emotion when it's a significant event."

"Well with you, who knows what a significant event is?"

"I don't know, maybe _me_?"

"You don't even know how to deal with the things going on in your head."

"So, what, you can't have relationships with emotional cripples? Didn't seem to stop you before, when you invaded my space and dressed like an actress from an office porno."

"You think insulting the way I dress is going to make me calm down?"  
"No, I was just deflecting; you were making me question myself." he said, rolling his eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I told you before, I was worried-"

"People don't get worried about just anyone, it doesn't make sense. So obviously you care about me which means that-"

"Yeah, I care about you; it is possible in my universe to care about someone of the opposite sex without wanting to jump them. Sorry it isn't that way in your world!"

"Well, you've figured out that I'm not going to drown myself in bourbon, Dr. Nolan told me that I can't have anything druggy. I listened, aren't you proud of me mommy?"

"No, not really! You're still acting like an overemotional five year old!"  
"I thought I wasn't supposed to have emotions."

"Five year olds haven't developed them yet, they just scream and kick at everything that doesn't fit into their idea of a perfect day."  
"Guess that explains why I've been screaming at you. Although I really would rather be screaming _with_ you."

It was a weak attempt, making a sex joke, and he knew it wasn't going to work as soon as it came out of his mouth.

Cuddy narrowed her eyes at him still further.

"Obviously this conversation isn't going anywhere, it was stupid of me to think that coming over here would change anything."

She wasn't angry anymore, it more like she was… disappointed.

And yet he kept going.  
"No, talking changes nothing with me. Actions on the other hand…"

House was aware that Cuddy wasn't screaming at him anymore, she had a hard, determined look on her face.

They stared at each other, each daring the other to speak, to start up the conflict again.

"You are _the_ most stubborn, arrogant, insufferable, screwed-up, impossible ass that I have ever had the misfortune to meet."

"Well, you better be able to put up with me, because I'm going to be around for a while. You made sure of that, what with all the sacrifices you've made for someone you seemingly hate."

"I don't hate you. And I have NO idea why I have done so much for you."

"Neither do I. But you have. And I don't deserve any of it."

They stared at each other for a long time; it was as if time had stood still, nothing else mattered except looking into the eyes of the other.

And then slowly, their expressions softened, and they began to drift closer.

House would later say that his body was on autopilot, Cuddy would go as far as to say that House had grabbed her closer to him.

But neither could deny what had happened next.

Suddenly, his mouth was on hers, and he wasted no time getting the pace to the place that they needed, the speed of their ferocious kisses matched only by the intensity of the raw emotions that they felt for each other.

His hands were tangled up in her hair, her arms around his neck, their mouths trying to get more of each other, oxygen not nearly as important as the taste of the other's lips.

He broke the kiss, and looked at her face held in his hands, he soft brown curls spilling out between his fingers.

She looked softer, her eyes were still blazing but they were filled with lust now, it was obvious that he still had an effect on her.

He didn't know what to say, he knew that he should say something, but for all of the brilliant, witty things that he could come up with, nothing seemed to be the right thing to say.

Their breathing was the only sound in the room, and he realized that words, for once, didn't need to be spoken, because the scene of them, so close together, her face in his hands, her arms around his neck, spoke volumes.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a kiss, a kiss was surely worth a million.


End file.
